Ontological Reductionism
Ontological reductionism is the belief that reality is composed of a minimum number of kinds of entities or substances. This claim is usually metaphysical, and is most commonly a form of monism, in effect claiming that all objects, properties and events are reducible to a single substance. (A dualist who is an ontological reductionist would believe that everything is reducible to two substances - as one possible example, a dualist might claim that reality is composed of "matter" and "spirit".)
Nancey Murphy has claimed that there are two species of ontological reductionism: one that denies that wholes are anything more than their parts; and the stronger thesis of atomist reductionism that wholes are not "really real". She admits that the phrase "really real" is apparently senseless but nonetheless has tried to explicate the supposed difference between the two.
Read more about this topic: Reductionism, Types of Reductionism
Famous quotes containing the word reductionism:
“One good reason for the popularity of “reductionism” among the philosophical outposts of the Western Establishment is that it can be, and is, used as a device for trying to take the wind, so to speak, out of the sails of Marxism.... In essence reductionism is a kind of anti-Marxist caricature of Marxist determinism. It is what anti-Marxists pretend that Marxist determinism is.”
—Claud Cockburn (1904–1981)